Sputter your MagLED reflector

I did it to mine and the beam is now flawless. It really doesn't take much texture or more than 1 coat, and even the cheap Color Place from Walmart clear spray paint works. I might actually use this thing now, even though it dims pretty bad.

I don't understand the logic behind this. LEDs produce a pretty smooth beam. Why diminish efficiency for something that is not necessary? I can see for incandescents, but LEDs? Maybe something is wrong with your MagLED.

When my MagLED dims, I'm still throwing a spot 3-4 houses away. That's my kinda dim.

CM said:

I don't understand the logic behind this. LEDs produce a pretty smooth beam. Why diminish efficiency for something that is not necessary? I can see for incandescents, but LEDs? Maybe something is wrong with your MagLED.

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Mine had a pretty nasty flared hotspot, and you could see the wires of the LED in the beam.

chevrofreak said:

Mine had a pretty nasty flared hotspot, and you could see the wires of the LED in the beam.

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You can get textured reflectors for the MAG. They'll probabably be more efficient than sputtering clear coat. I can't remember who sells them but you can probably search the forums here. I don't think they're very expensive. My self modified MAG has a pretty smooth beam using the stock reflector. That's the advantage of LED's.

What kind of spary paint did you use, and how exactly do you do it? I would love to give my mag led a more useful beam.

I've sputtered reflectors but it Kills the light output.


You could see the led wires Only on a white wall you could never see them in real use.


Mac

Lumenation said:

What kind of spary paint did you use, and how exactly do you do it? I would love to give my mag led a more useful beam.

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I used the cheap Color Place rattle cans of clearcoat from Walmart. You just press the button down enough that it starts spitting larger sized drops of the "paint" out, then let them collect on the surface of the reflector. It can be difficult to do with your trigger finger, which is why I use my thumb to press the button.


I don't notice a difference in brightness between sputtered and non-sputtered as far as overall output, but the sputtered reflector definately has less throw. I prefer flood to throw because most of my flashlight use is close up stuff. At close ranges the artifacts in the beam were very noticeable to me and were distracting. My ADD gets the better of me and instead of my mind focussing on what it is I'm doing I start thinking about how crappy the beam from my flashlight is

That leads to tinkering......

I have one of the diffusing lenses I used to use before frosting became THE way to tame incandescent bulbs on my M*gled. It works very well!

I don't think I'd be able to sputter worth a hoot anyhow!